Humor

You know the Win98 setup wizard by heart, and can walk a user through it without interrupting your Quake/MUD/IRC session to do so.

You know where the e-mail settings are in Internet Mail, Outlook Express, Pegasus, Eudora, Netscape Mail, Messenger Mailbox, and you don’t use any of those programs for personal use.

You maintain more than four Web sites, and do not have time for a personal Web page.

You know all of the following people by reputation, and can explain what they’ve done that is relevant to your world: Steve Case, Linus Torvalds, Eric Allman, Sanford Wallace.

You know what TCP/IP stands for, not to mention DNS, HTTP, SNMP, BGP, OSPF and DUN. You like acronyms.

You know more phone numbers to modem banks than you know phone numbers to people.

You can name two Web browsers other than Netscape or Microsoft’s.

You find telnet a helpful daily tool, instead of wondering what it is for.

You can answer the question, "Is the Internet broken?," without laughing.

You can spot the theme behind the following list: RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Caldera, Slackware.

You can feel the load a server is under without actually checking statistics. The explanation, "It just isn’t running right," actually makes sense.

Grant Wentzel

Dr. Seuss: Technical Writer

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort, and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, and your data is corrupted because the index doesn’t hash, then your situation’s hopeless, and your system’s gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house, says the network is connected to the button on your mouse, but your packets want to tunnel on another protocol, that’s repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall, and your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse, then you may as well reboot, and go out with a bang, because as sure as I’m a poet, the ‘puter’s gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy’s getting sloppy on the disk, and the microcode instructions cause unnecessary RISC, then you have to flash your memory, and you’ll want to RAM your ROM. Quickly turn off the computer, and be sure to tell your mom!

Lane Startin

Top Five Signs You Might Be a Sys Admin

5. -Your sleep schedule is similar to that of the great horned owl.

4. -You make more than all of the MBAs you know.

3. -The last time you wore a tie was your high school graduation.

2. -"What?! No raise?!! No backups, then..."

And the number one sign you might be a system admininstrator...

1. -You have ever uttered the phrase, "I will be working from home today, so I

can avoid wearing pants."

Scott Bryce

Computer Nerd Checklist

Your Web page is more popular than you.

Your favorite sport is Tetris.

You know what fuzzy logic is.

You’ve never actually met many of your friends.

You’ve set up a LAN in your house.

You understood the above statement.

Your idea of hurrying is typing faster.

Someone mentions foreign language and you think: COBOL.

You get a new computer, take it out of the box, and immediately remove the case.

You do processes in DOS instead of Windows, not because it is faster, but because it confuses people.

You check your e-mail before you check your answering machine.

You have a better computer system at home than at work.

You know exactly how much hard drive space you have free, but you don’t know your spouse’s birthday.